---
title: He was told to help the other men to clean out the well. — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He was told to help the other men to clean out the well. Who acts: Hans. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 13, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 13, sentence 30

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He was told to help the other men to clean out the well.

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**Who acts:** Hans · **What happens:** tell, help, clean out · **To what, where:** Hans, other men · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 13. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Hans), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg5615:13:30
# text = He was told to help the other men to clean out the well.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux:pass	_	_
3	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	clean	clean	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	_
11	out	out	ADP	RP	_	10	compound:prt	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past · passive |  | Hans |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **help** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Hans *not said here* |  | the other men |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent man=Beneficiary |
| 3 | **clean out** | to-infinitive | Hans *not said here* |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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